


The Medusa Jewel

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, fluff and sarcasm, post-MKAT, shameless mockery of misogynistic male writers, spoilers through everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 20:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: Logan and Veronica's new neighbor is a writer.





	The Medusa Jewel

The new guy moves into the apartment downstairs in February.

Veronica receives some forewarning—Tammy, the landlady, tells her that the new tenant seems like a real nice guy, a writer, but not too noisy—and Veronica doesn’t give the matter much thought when she sees the moving truck a week later. The apartment below her and Logan’s place has been empty for close to a year while Tammy had it renovated, and she’s confident that whoever moves in will prove less of an annoyance than the racket of a kitchen remodel did. Pony will certainly appreciate never having to cope with the sound of table-saws again.

Still, with Logan deployed (for the very last time, she tries not to remind herself too often, because it just feels like tempting fate), Veronica and Pony practically live at the Mars Investigations office, and she doesn’t actually encounter their new neighbor for several weeks.

It’s coming back from a run that she does meet him for the first time.

She’s crossing the street on her way home, jangling Pony’s leash and carrying on an admittedly one-sided conversation with the dog, having reached that level of Logan-missing-crazy where it feels acceptable to do so.

“’Course I _have_ ordered out twice this week,” she’s saying, pushing sweaty, fly-away strands of hair out of her eyes, “So I should probably just cook that chicken in the freezer already, huh?” Pony has no opinion on the matter, but she does pant affectionately up at Veronica, so V’s mildly distracted and nearly runs headlong into someone on the sidewalk outside her building. “Shit, sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault, I was...” The guy gestures with a phone. “Sorry. Oh, hey, you’re the upstairs neighbor, right?”

Introductions are made.

His name is Daniel; he’s in his mid-thirties, lanky and scruffy and dressed like he’s a decade younger than he is, in plaid and a hoodie. Wears hipster glasses and expensive shoes, and has the iPhone that was released all of three days ago, so at least Tammy will be collecting her rent on time. A few minutes of polite conversation tell Veronica that Daniel is, in fact, a writer. He’s sold some scripts and short stories and is working on a mystery novel, so his interest is piqued when Veronica admits that she's a private investigator. His eyes flicker toward her left hand, so she’s sure to make explicit reference to her boyfriend, with whom she very much cohabitates. Daniel's interest level visibly un-piques at that. Still, the exchange is cordial enough, ends pleasantly, after which Veronica jogs upstairs, defrosts the chicken, and promptly forgets all about it.

She encounters him a handful of times after that. When compelled to conversate, she’ll ask about his novel, because that’s the easiest fact to remember about him and because Veronica is a sucker for a good mystery. Daniel’s always eager to update her: he’s hit a breakthrough, he’s hit a snag, his editor feels like he’s missing something... there’s always some drama in the ongoing saga of his writing, which is kind of a pain when Veronica’s in a hurry, but, all in all, still better than the constant yammering of the table-saw.

 

 

Logan comes home in May.

Four days later, they step out of the apartment.

 

 

“This was a terrible idea,” Veronica complains, sinking into the sand and groaning dramatically. She stretches out her legs in front of her, which soothes exactly zero of her aching muscles, and she thoroughly regrets that she ever let her ridiculous jock boyfriend talk her out of bed (and into a jog on the beach!) before nine a.m.

Logan falls down beside her. He _is_ wearing gym shorts and a tight black t-shirt, though, so maybe going for a run wasn’t the _worst_ mistake ever.

Pony pads circles around them, yips for attention, which Logan grants her, reaching out and scratching behind the dog’s ears. He’s clearly just happy to be home, even if the workout ended less rigorously than planned.

“Maybe for you, but _I_ gotta stay in shape,” he says. “I know why you keep me around.”

Veronica _mhms_ her agreement, leans against him and traces the abdominal muscles under his shirt with her fingertips. The fact that she’s already traced the same path with her tongue this morning somehow does not quell her enthusiasm.

“Well, you also gotta think about the calendars,” she says.

He doesn’t follow: “Calendars?”

“The firefighter calendars,” she elaborates, resting her head on his shoulder. “You _know_ they’re going to want you for at least three of the months—important ones too, not just the throw-away ones like March.”

“You know I’m not going to be _that_ kind of firefighter, right?”

Because of _course,_ Logan would quit one dangerous job only to immediately sign up for another. Veronica can’t really complain (except on the inside, where she does quite a bit of complaining), because she’d been concerned when Logan decided not to re-up. She’d worried that he’d have trouble finding something to do that gave him a sense of purpose, and she knows how important that is. Plus, flying planes over wild fires, while a truly terrifying prospect that she’s trying very hard not to think about, won’t keep him all-but completely isolated from her for months at a time, so... there’s that.

“Anyway, I’ve still gotta get accepted, and then pass the...”

“Oh they’ll accept you,” says Veronica. She pats his belly confidently and he kisses the top of her head in response. “They have to. Look at you. Think of the calendars.”

 

 

 

And of course they _do_ accept him, which means he’ll have to take a bunch of classes and go do a bunch of training. But first it means that Logan and Veronica go out for a celebratory dinner with her dad and Annie, and then come home, open up a bottle of wine, and have a whole bunch of delightful celebratory sex.

And, okay, maybe things get a little out of hand.

In a good way. In, like, the best of ways, because it’s so late, and it’s round three, and Veronica’s on his lap, riding him while he kisses up her spine and keeps hitting the perfect angle inside her, fingers working between her legs so that she’s just—just drowning in the sensations, cums blindingly hard, and still hears herself moaning in the dark as the pleasure ripples through her body, until Logan follows her over the edge.

And then it’s minutes later, and they’re still boneless messes tangled up together, turned around in bed, kissing and giggling like fucking teenagers, when the sobering sound of the doorbell brings all celebration to an abrupt halt.

Logan sits up and checks his phone. “It’s after one o’clock,” he says, while Veronica extracts herself—with great difficulty—from the entire situation on the bed. “Who the hell is at the door?”

“Maybe it’s the neighbors complaining about the noise,” she jokes, then frowns because that’s actually within the realm of possibility. That damn cabernet.

At any rate, Pony’s going ballistic in the other room, so if there aren’t any noise complaints at present, there will be soon. Veronica casts around for an article of clothing and, coming up empty (their clothes from earlier are still strewn across the the kitchen floor, of course), she snatches the bathrobe that hangs on the door. Logan finds boxers and a t-shirt in the dresser, and follows her into the kitchen, grumbling unintelligibly as they go.

She checks the peephole on the front door. Turns to whisper to Logan, “It’s Daniel from downstairs.”

Logan runs a hand over his face. “What the hell does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he’s a murderer?”

“I...” Then Veronica notices what else Logan brought along from the bedroom. “A baseball bat, Logan?”

“Seems like a good idea. I don’t know who you’re pissing off at work these days.”

“You think a murderer is going to ring the doorbell?”

“It happens. That’s how they get you. This one guy used to go door-to-door and...”

“No more true crime for you, Echolls. Besides, how are you going to use that thing at close range?”

“Good point—where’s your taser?”

“Purse on the counter.”

Logan obtains the taser. “He still there?”

Veronica checks. “Yes.”

“Okay, step back, I’ll open the door.”

“Why do you open the door?”

“In case he’s a murderer.”

“That’s sexist.”

“It’s sexist not to want you to get murdered?”

“Well I don’t want _you_ to get murdered either.”

“Fine, we’ll both open the door. That way we can _both_ get murdered.”

Logan tucks the taser behind his back, and they open the door.

Daniel starts, taken aback, though God knows why. What could he possibly expect, pestering them at one o’clock in the morning?

“Can we help you?” asks Logan, utterly impolite. Veronica thinks he’s entitled to that much because—again, one o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, hey, sorry,” says Daniel, shuffling around. He, too, is wearing pajamas—plaid flannel trousers and a USC t-shirt, and he startles again when Pony starts to holler. Logan calms her with a word, and Daniel carries on, “Sorry, I just—there was a bunch of noise...” ( _Yikes.)_ “...I just wanted to make sure everything was okay…”

“That’s weird, we didn’t hear anything,” says Logan, and Veronica wants to laugh, but she contents herself with subtly kicking him. “Besides the doorbell, of course.”

Daniel does not address this slight to his manners, instead choosing this rather unfortunate time to introduce himself. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he says to Logan. “I’m Daniel, I live downstairs.”

“This is Logan,” says Veronica, as if it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and they’re all meeting at the church picnic. She knows her pleasantness will irritate her boyfriend, and that can be fun.

“Oh, are you the...?” Daniel does some awkward shoulder shimmy thing, “...the boyfriend? Veronica told me all about you, of course. I didn’t realize you were back from—your... uh...”

“Deployment.”

“Deployment, right. Well—welcome back.”

“Thanks.” Logan shoots her a look, like _can you believe this?_ , but Veronica’s mostly just glad that, against all odds, the interaction has somehow veered away from the fact that their downstairs neighbor most _definitely_ just came up to complain about their loud sex.

“Well, anyway, I just wanted to...” Daniel kicks his toes, supremely awkward, “...y’know I got an early meeting with my agent...”

“We’ll keep it down,” says Logan crisply and shuts the door in his face, locks it with a decisive _click_. Veronica claps a hand over her mouth and checks through the peephole to make sure he’s gone, before she dissolves into laughter. “Can you believe that guy?” Logan marvels, rubbing his eyes with the hand not holding the taser. “What kind of weirdo comes up here to complain about that?”

Veronica’s still laughing, but it’s half an avoidance tactic so that she doesn’t have to face the total humiliation of the situation. “Oh my God, I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again. We’ll have to _move._ ”

“Why?” Logan leads the way back into the bedroom. “He’s the one who should be embarrassed. That was fucking weird. Although...” He sets the taser down on the dresser. “It’s not a bad idea. I saw this place on Sycamore...”

“ _Sycamore_? What are we, eighty year old retirees?” Veronica shakes her head, leans against Logan’s chest. “We _were_ being noisy.”

“You were being noisy.”

“You contributed to the problem. And it _is_ a shared wall.”

“Shared wall? He lives _downstairs_.”

“Yeah, but it’s the same wall all the way down.”

Logan kisses the top of her head. “Still doesn’t make it okay to come up here and bitch about it,” he says. “And what was all that, ‘ _I didn’t know you were back’_ stuff? What, did he think you were filming a solo porno?” He loops his arms around her waist and picks her up, “He wants noisy, I’ll give him noisy.” She laughs as he starts to march them towards the bed. “We should break the goddamn headboard, is what we should do.”

 

(They don’t break the headboard, though they do enjoy themselves trying to keep quiet while making each other get loud, and all in all, it’s not the worst way to end the evening.)

 

 

 

Veronica doesn’t go out of her way to avoid Daniel over the next few weeks, but she doesn’t see much of him either. Logan mentions that they have “a totally civil” conversation when they’re both taking out the trash one Tuesday, and they run into him letting himself into his apartment (accompanied by a cute brunette) when they’re coming home from dinner with Wallace a couple weeks later. Veronica’s hopeful that he’s as embarrassed by the whole thing as she is, and it won’t come up again.

Logan is not embarrassed, because Logan is nearly impossible to embarrass, the lucky bastard.

 

 

 

She almost has a conversation with Daniel in late May, when he tries to tell her about how he finally reached a major epiphany with his book and it’s practically done, but Veronica is hastily loading Pony into the car, and she truly does not have the time. “Can’t wait to read it, but I gotta go make sure a seventeen-year-old doesn’t get life for a crime he didn’t commit, so...”

She closes the driver’s side door against his muffled, “ _I’ll send you a copy when it’s finished!”_

 

 

 

Daniel does send her a copy when it’s finished. Actually, he presents her with it, when she’s on her way out the door one morning. She thanks him and stuffs it in her bag and doesn’t so much as glance at it until she gets home that evening.

Logan’s out of town at the moment, training to be the type of lunatic who _flies planes over dangerous wild fires_ , and Veronica tends to distract herself from that sort of thing by throwing herself into work. Usually this means that, when she’s completely scorched her brain with case-files, she’ll peruse the generous collection of books shelved throughout the apartment (curated largely by Logan) for a distraction from her distraction.

In doing so that evening, she remembers Daniel’s gift and retrieves it from her bag.

The book is a jet black hardcover with the image of a shadow-cast diamond necklace and ransom-note-style letters bearing the title: _The Medusa Jewel._

Veronica reads the jacket blurb ( _A young Los Angeles writer finds himself embroiled in a mystery that could cost him everything..._ ), then sets the book on a shelf and instead selects the latest Gillian Flynn.

 

 

Logan returns home, but has some downtime before he officially starts work. He uses said downtime to 1) perfect his lasagna (it’s unreal, Veronica is jealous and also obscenely pleased with it), 2) follow Veronica around on boring stakeouts (he nearly costs her a money shot distracting her in the most Logan Echolls of ways, and she bans him from her car pending proof of ability to behave non-lasciviously), 3) teach Pony a handful of new commands (including turning off the kitchen lights, which is annoying, because Veronica has to pretend not to be impressed), 4) provide critical insight that allows Veronica to solve a case that’s been puzzling her for _weeks_ (also annoying, see item 3), and 5) completely clean out the freezer (which is a project they’ve been procrastinating on, and earns him all kinds of gratitude.)

It’s during this period that Veronica runs into Daniel again, despite her best efforts to avoid eye contact as she makes her way upstairs after a too-long day of work.

“So did you read it?” he asks, standing on the sidewalk and beeping his Chevy Malibu unlocked. There’s something almost bashful about the way he asks. This should raise red flags, but Veronica is tired and hungry in the worst kind of yelling-at-slow-walking-pedestrians way, so she doesn’t exert the energy to examine it.

Tells a half-truth, “I haven’t finished it just yet,” and concludes with a bald-faced lie: “But I started it. I’m—liking it so far.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome. Well—let me know what you think.”

“Will do.”

 _Ugh_. This probably means that she has to read it, huh? She sighs and trudges upstairs, but her irritation dissipates along with her memory of the commitment as soon as she enters the apartment and is met with the aroma of lasagna.

 

* * *

 

 

Logan picks up the book as a matter of curiosity and boredom. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and Veronica’s gone into the office for a few hours, so he’s home alone. They were supposed to go to some seafood festival down by the marina, but Logan’s skeptical as to whether they’ll make it at this point. He’s completed his personal checklist of chores—plus surfing with Dick and the dog park with Pony—and now he’s perusing the bookshelves for some light reading.

He notices the title, _The Medusa Jewel,_ and it makes him chuckle right away. The jacket summary is even better. Veronica mentioned that the neighbor gave them a copy of his novel, but even if she hadn’t, Logan would have guessed the author just from the synopsis. Still, nothing wrong with a little self-insert noir. Anyway, Logan’s already finished the last Gillian Flynn, so he figures _what the hell_ and sets himself up on the couch to check out the first chapter.

 

 

 

Veronica arrives home a few hours later, juggling her usual assortment of work accoutrements, and if Logan were in a different place—like, psychologically speaking—he would get up from the couch to help her. As it is, she dumps everything on the kitchen table—a purse, a briefcase, two grocery bags, and a strangely shaped UPS package—and turns to Logan on the couch. “Hey, what’s up?”

There’s the faintest trace of guilt in her voice, probably because she’s home later than planned, but Logan has far bigger fish to fry. He holds up the book, “Have you read this?”

Veronica steps closer, squints to read the title. “Uh—no?”

“Well you should. You’re in it.”

Her eyes go wide. “ _No_.”

Logan thumbs back to the page he dog-eared for reference, reads aloud: “ _Detective Elisha Monroe, LAPD, was a short, lithe figure of a woman. Slim but curvy, with flaxen yellow hair and sparkling blue eyes._ ”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m not even close to being done.”

“Okay, hold that thought.” She flattens her hand in a _stop_ gesture. “I’m gonna pee. I’m gonna take off my shoes. And then you’re telling me everything.”

Logan shakes his head. _Oh just you wait_.

 

 

 

“ _Detective Elisha Monroe, LAPD, was a short, lithe figure of a woman. Slim but curvy, with flaxen yellow hair and sparkling blue eyes._ _She wore a tight black suit, professional but sexy_...”

“Oh _no_.”

“... _The undone top two buttons of her nearly translucent white blouse hinted at the perky breasts beneath_...”

“Oh _noooooo.”_

“ _She was twenty-seven, smart and sassy_...”

“Gross.”

“ _Her résumé was impressive. Harvard...”_

“Well naturally...”

“… _Yale Law, with a PhD in Criminology and another in Forensic Psychology_...”

“Did he say she was _twenty-seven?_ ”

“ _...But you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She was gorgeous—not in the glamour girl kind of way that other men found attractive, but like the girl next door... and not just because she lived in Sloane’s apartment building.”_

Veronica hands Logan a glass of wine, sits down on the couch beside him. “Who’s Sloane?’

“Sloane? Why, David Sloane is our hero,” says Logan. “He’s a _novelist_ who frequently finds himself ensnared in the seedy doings of the Los Angeles underworld.”

Veronica gasps, clasps a hand over her chest, appalled. “Do you mean to tell me that Elissa Monroe...”

“ _Elisha_.”

“ _Elisha_ Monroe, a twenty-seven-year-old prodigy with perky breasts and two graduate degrees, who is also somehow a cop, is _not_ the protagonist of this book?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Babe, but Elisha Monroe is introduced on page...” he checks for veracity, “twenty-two, and hers are the _third_ set of breasts described in this book.”

Veronica gasps again. “I’m a _noir bimbo_?”

“Afraid so.”

“Oh my God, let me read it.” She grabs for the book, but Logan holds it out of reach.

“I had it first.”

“No fair, he gave it to _me_.”

“And you could’ve read it weeks ago, but you didn’t.”

“I’m _in_ it, though.”

Logan chuckles. “You think you’re the only one who’s in this?”

Her eyes go wide again. “ _No_.”

“I _told_ you, I’m not even close to being done.” He flips forward a few more pages, clears his throat and reads, “ _This was Elisha’s boyfriend: Chase. Chase Huntley. Sloane half remembered his name from some washed up tabloid. His parents were famous, before they were scandalous, before they were..."_ He pauses for dramatic effect, " _...de_ _ad."_

Veronica groans and drops her forehead onto his shoulder.

“Wait I haven’t even gotten to the good part: _Huntley was the surfer type. Bland, tanned, and muscled. He had light brown hair and brown eyes, and he stood just an inch shorter than Sloane..._ Oh he wishes... _He bathed in expensive cologne and ran some tacky nightclub in North Hollywood. Sometimes Sloane went out there to..._ ”

“Logan, this is hurting my brain.” Veronica takes a deep drink of wine. “Also, I kind of want to read all of it immediately.”

Logan is about to argue, but then he has a thought. He flips to the back of the book, and— _bingo_. “There’s a code for an E-Book download.”

“Oh _score!_ ” says Veronica, and she leaps up to grab the tablet.

 

 

 

“ _God,”_ says Logan, “Sloane bangs the bartender.”

Veronica frowns, not tearing her eyes away from the e-reader in front of her. “I thought they said Isabella was gay.”

Logan shoots her a look. “His magnetism is _that_ strong.”

“Oh _god_. But, hey, stop being so far ahead of me.” She waves vaguely at him. “Go make dinner so I can catch up.”

“Fine, I need a break anyway.” Logan drags himself off the couch. “It was just hinted that Chase is a cokehead. And there was _another_ breast-fruit comparison.”

“It’s a good thing we didn’t start that drinking game, because we’d be plastered by now.” 

 

 

 

“Who do you think the killer is?” Veronica asks, over a bite of reheated chicken cacciatore.

Logan snorts. “The priest.”

“It can’t be Father Joe, that’s _way_ too obvious. Nobody would write a mystery _that_ obvious.”

“Aww, Sugarplum, that’s what I love about you.” Logan kisses her on the forehead. “Despite everything, you still hold on to your faith in humanity.”

“You take that back.”

She snuggles up under his arm, though, dinner plate propped between her crisscrossed legs, tablet in hand. They haven’t bothered to relocate from the living room and are enjoying dinner-and-a-book on the couch.

“I’m gonna be so pissed if it’s the priest,” she says.

“Is there any outcome that _won’t_ piss you off?”

“Good point.”

 

 

 

Logan groans, but tries to keep it quiet, because he’s a few pages ahead of Veronica and doesn’t want to spoil anything.

She’s not bothered though. “He banged the nurse with the ‘hourglass figure,’ didn’t he,” she says, resigned.

“And the Russian ballerina.”

“This man is out of control.”

 

 

 

“You know, I’m a little offended,” says Veronica. She leans forward and grabs the wine bottle to top off both of their glasses. Logan raises his eyebrows at her.

“He’s described Elisha’s nipples through her blouse about... twelve times. I think we’re _way_ beyond _offended_.”

 She ignores him. “He’s very strongly implying that Elisha is just using Chase for sex and because he’s rich. That does not paint her in a very positive light, y’know.”

“Well at least Elisha has seventeen PhDs and can read Sumerian Cuneiform, because Chase can’t even string together a coherent sentence.”

Veronica loops her arm through Logan’s and picks up her tablet again. “The priest is totally the killer.”

“You’re like... two pages away from another shitty dream sequence.”

“Oh, _nooo_.”

 

 

 

“Why do you _read so fast_ , Echolls?”

“You know I’m a speed reader.”

“But I want to catch up to you.”

“Read faster.”

“You’re the worst.”

 

 

 

“Oh _fuck you,_ Daniel...” Veronica grabs Logan’s book to check the front cover for a last name, “... _Prescott_.”

“What?”

She reads aloud: “‘ _Well, Tiger,’ smirked Elisha coyly, ‘I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got to go make sure a seventeen-year-old kid doesn’t get life for a crime he didn’t commit.’_ That’s me! That’s what I said! That’s my case! He plagiarized me! I should sue.”

Logan shudders. “You said ‘ _Tiger?’”_

“Obviously not _that_ part. Oh, ugh, and _this_...” She keeps reading, “ _...At this distance, he could see the slight bump in the ridge of Detective Monroe’s nose. It was the biggest flaw marring her Cheerleader beauty. Like a—_ no listen, Jesus Christ— _like a zit on the Mona Lisa.”_

Logan kisses the bump in the ridge of Veronica’s utterly perfect nose. “Would you like me to murder him for you?”

She settles in closer. “Yes, please.”

 

 

 

“There’s a typo.”

“The extra ‘d’ in ‘prestidigitation?’”

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

“Oh, _fuck_.” Logan thinks he has finally reached his threshold. He sets down the book and picks up the by-now cold dinner dishes, standing to take them to the kitchen. Veronica glances away from her tablet, watches him, mildly concerned.

“What?”

“Sex scene.”

Veronica snickers. “You should be used to it by now. Our tortured artist has already hooked up with every woman in Southern California.”

“No, I mean—a _sex scene._ Like... a graphic one.”

“ _No_.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not...?”

“I think you know that it is.”

She winces and pulls her knees up against her chest. “Elisha?”

“Yes.”

“And Sloane?”

“Who else?”

“ _Noooo_.”

 

 

 

Veronica and Logan sit very still, staring at their respective reading apparatuses. They’re so quiet, in fact, that Pony gets up from her bed and trots over, places her paws on the couch between them and whines—just to be sure everything is okay.

“Weirdly,” Veronica begins at length, “I’m not mad anymore.”

“I’m not even mad anymore,” agrees Logan. “That was...”

“I don’t have a word for it.”

“Bad. The word is _bad_.”

“Bad sex, badly written,” says Veronica. “I—I think I feel sorry for him.”

“Who, Daniel?”

“Yes, I mean, if _that’s_ what he’s doing...” She gestures with the tablet, “And _that’s_ how he’s doing it...  he’s never had good sex.”

“I feel sorrier for whoever he’s been doing that _with_ ,” says Logan. “I mean, this...” He waves the book, “...is published proof that—well, one, that he owns the Pick the Grossest Word Thesaurus, and two, that he has _never_ given a woman _any_ pleasure.”

Veronica dissolves into laughter at that, sets down the E-Book and climbs off the couch again. “I’m getting ice cream. Do _not_ read ahead without me.”

 

 

 

  
“Okay, I’m mad again!”

“Because Elisha got kidnapped?”

“He expects me to believe that Detective Elisha Monroe, with her thirty-two degrees and expert knowledge of jiu jitsu and krav maga...”

“And the cello, for some reason.”

“... _And the cello for some reason_ —did _not_ solve the murder _or_ the museum heist, and then managed to get herself kidnapped by a seventy-two-year-old man? Meanwhile some loser who doesn’t even know the difference between Zoloft and MDMA— _he’s_ the one that solves everything and then swoops to the rescue? Okay _. Sure_.”

“But Veronica,” says Logan seriously, “They already established that David Sloane has a _genius_ I.Q., and the only reason he got kicked out of M.I.T. was because the rich kids were jealous of him and framed him for theft.”

“I am _officially_ mad again.”

 

 

 

“I can’t believe Father Joe was the killer,” sighs Veronica, much later that night, when they’re cleaned and changed and turning down the bed for the evening. “And by that I mean, I can’t believe the killer was _so obvious_ for the entire book.”

“The only surprising thing about it,” says Logan, plugging in his phone to charge on the bedside table, “is that he didn’t make Chase the murderer.”

“Oh no,” says Veronica, “He couldn’t make _Chase Huntley_ the murderer. Elisha had to reject Chase and choose the irresistible David Sloane _strictly_ on his own manly merits.”

“Significant as they are.”

“Exactly.” They both climb into bed. Veronica immediately rolls over onto her side, facing away from him, which—since they’re not fighting, and since she’s wiggled her way into the center of the bed—Logan takes as his cue to curl up behind her. He switches off the light, then pulls her close. “Is it weird that we read porn together today?” Veronica whispers after a moment.

“It’s weird that we read _bad_ porn together today.”

“Okay, so—aside from the obvious: best scene? Go.”

“Hard to pick just one... possibly the part where Sloane reveals that he knew the gem was a fake all along, because...”

“...He secretly speaks Greek.”

“ _Mind-blowing_.”

“I think I’m gonna go with the scene where Elisha has to strip down in order to retrieve a clue from the bottom of the Senator’s swimming pool.”

“Because pool nets don’t exist.”

“Right.”

“I think—oh, wait, no, how could we forget...?”

“Hot air balloon chase scene!”

“ _Hot air balloon chase scene_.”

“Instant classic.”

“Oh my God.” Veronica threads their fingers together, giggles against his knuckles: “We’ve gotta make sure my dad never reads that book.”

“If at all possible, we should make sure that _no one_ ever reads that book.”

 

 

 

“Logan.”

He comes awake to the sound of his name, muffled against his shirt as Veronica whispers to him in their dark bedroom. No clue what time it is, but it’s gotta be the middle of the night: he was pretty deeply asleep, and they only drifted off well after midnight, still quoting  _Medusa Jewel_ at each other.

Veronica repeats his name and Logan opens his eyes, managing a useless, “S’wrong-V’ronic?” as he fights his way out of slumber.

She’s turned around, is resting her head on his chest now. He can see, once his vision adjusts, that she’s wide awake and staring at him with a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. It’s an expression that on some unconscious, primal level sends Logan’s blood directly south, and he suddenly finds himself considerably more alert.

“Two things,” Veronica murmurs, once she decides he’s awake enough to follow along. She pats his chest with the palm of her hand. “First: we should really buy our own place. I’m officially _over_ this whole shared wall thing.”

It’s a suggestion that Logan has made a couple of times himself, only to be met with evasiveness. He figured if it were something Veronica wanted, she’d let him know when she was good and ready... so he probably should have guessed that she’d find herself good and ready in middle of the night. Not that he’s complaining—

“Pony would like a yard,” he agrees, voice still gravelly from sleep, and Veronica’s smile grows.

“Second,” she goes on, “I know we just read a book where I—a pale imitation of my greatness, really—but for all intents and purposes, we read a book where I was basically using some knock-off version of you for sex and money, so don’t—you know I love you, _yada yada yada_ —don’t take this the wrong way, but...” She scrunches up her nose so fucking adorably it borders on absurd, “...Do you wanna break the goddamn headboard?”

Her eyebrows arch up in challenge.

Logan’s pulled her on top of him in one second flat. He slides his hands around her back then down over her ass, pressing her warm, soft body flush against him and enjoying the surprised little gasp she gives between laughing kisses as he does.

He pauses and draws back so that she can see him roll his eyes. Echoes her words back to her, amused: “ _Yada yada yada?_ ”

She grins, murmurs _shut up_ , and presses down, kissing him deeply.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost don't know if this qualifies for the smut-a-thon, but it has smut-themes? So I think it might count.
> 
> I have been laboring over two separate elaborate AU fics for this collection for many many weeks, and then this sucker popped into my brain yesterday morning and I wrote the whole thing in less than forty-eight hours (which like.... I don't write fast AT ALL). Apparently, the only thing I love as much as LoVe, is mocking misogynistic nice guy, male writers ;)
> 
> Anyway, xoxo to the Headquarters Crew for hosting the write-a-thon.


End file.
